We meet every Sunday at 10am on the first Sunday of the month, and 10:30am on the remaining Sundays.
We meet in the Bethany Room at High Street
Methodist Church, Witney. Postcode is OX28 6HG.
Our children's group arrangements are currently on hold, as we have no children participating regularly at present, but with advance notice, we can always accommodate children and are happy to do so.

Sunday, 7 February 2016

Minutes of February meeting for business

Witney Local Quaker Meeting

Minutes of a meeting for worship for
business held 7.2.16 in the Bethany Room, Methodist Church, Witney.

9 Friends were present. §2.12 of Quaker Faith and Practice was read during our opening worship.

16.01Matters arising

Woodbrooke on the Road event: arrangements are well in
hand for the shared event with Charlbury and Burford Friends. This will be held
at Charlbury FMH on Saturday 23 April from 9.30 am to 4pm and the theme is Building
a Quaker Community. All those associated
with Witney meeting are welcome to attend, and costs will be met by Witney LM.
Those wishing to attend are asked to let Jenny Franklin have their names by 1
March.

16.02Asylum Welcome

Mahalla Mason has updated us on work
being done to support refugee families from Syria coming to Witney. The need is for accommodation to rent, which is proving hard
to find. Storage for donations is difficult. Asylum Welcome has a list of what
will be required but at present money is what is being asked for. There is also
a need for language teachers for basic English. The adopt-a-room proposal can
be activated when accommodation has been secured. There will be a meeting of
the Refugee and Asylum Seeker Wider Group on 17 February at 10 am in Oxford
Town Hall.

We agree to ask members of the meeting to offer individual
donations as a separate project from our agreed giving at this stage, and to
review the need for a donation from LM funds later.

16.03 Finances 2015 and 2016

a) Our treasurer Ruth Slade has spoken to
the accounts for 2015, which we approve, subject to final audit. The accounts
will now be presented to the Area Meeting for auditing. We thank our treasurer for her work.

b) We have considered the detail of our
donations to Quaker bodies and to local organisations for 2016. We agree to
give to the following Quaker bodies: Young Friends General Meeting (£250) and
Glebe House (£250) and to return to possible donations to other Quaker bodies
later in the year.

We
agree to retain our local giving as for 2015, recognising that support for
refugee action might result in a drop in giving to other local causes (£200 to
Bridewell Organic Gardens, £200 to Base 33).

We agree that our treasurer should delay making these donations until later in
the year, when the bulk of members’ contributions will have been received and
we have a clearer picture of our resources.

16.04 Spiritual and Pastoral Care Gathering

Our
next gathering is at 7.30 pm on 24 February at 5 LarchLane, when our topics will include: appropriate
information for those who have been attending
or worshipping with us for about 6 months; understanding Quakerspeak; and making use of the Quaker
games which have been a gift from
Sue and John Bowers.

16.05 Rota for reading Advices and Queries

Peter
Couchman will re-establish this monthly rota.

There being no other business, the
meeting closed with worship at 12.15.